The Kristol and Kagan piece is interesting but, again, as I've typed to others, I think the argument that says the problem is the bad ol' French misses the point.
The point, at least as of this afternoon, Sunday, is that Bush has not only failed to convince much of the US but huge swaths of generally sympathetic public opinion outside the US. If he makes that case convincingly, over the next month or so, what the French and Germans do, think, and say, will definitely be less relevant. However, so long as he does not, they are very relevant.
Not a few posts on this thread have argued that one of the basic lessons from Vietnam is that an administration should not take the country to war if it fails to convince a large portion of the population that all other options have failed and the country is under some imminent threat. The Bush folk have still not done that. |
